Coca-Cola Meets Coffee in Japan

Coffee aficionados who also have a Coca-Cola addiction may have finally met their match: a new hybrid beverage dubbed Coca-Cola Coffee Plus has hit the Japanese market, bringing the best parts of the morning pick-me-up and the soda's sugary sweetness into a single can.

According to the Coca-Cola Japan's website, the beverage is made with fructose glucose liquid sugar, coffee extract powder and carbonic acid, caramel coloring matter, acidulant, fragrance, and caffeine—a whole lot of caffeine. In fact, the 190-milliliter can contains double the amount of caffeine you'd find in a regular can of Coke. And it comes in at just 42 calories.

A Japanese product review website reports that residents around the country have done a double-take when they've spotted the new beverage in vending machines. So the reviewer decided to take a taste of the beverage himself. What does it taste like? "It was exactly like I added coffee to Coke," he wrote. "I don't think it's delicious, but it's not as bad as I thought."

What's more, the reviewer said the beverage has a strange smell: not quite coffee, not quite Coke. "To be honest," he wrote, "it is not a fragrance that seems to be very tasty."

In conclusion, the reviewer wrote that the taste and smell are as if he added a shot of coffee to (specifically) a mix of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero, and even suggests that others try that formula. If that doesn't make you want to try it, though, he's got one reason why you still might want to take a sip: "Rather than wanting to drink [it for] taste, it may be a product that is suitable for [when you want to wake up], such as when you have workloads [and you] cannot catch up without coffee and Coca-Cola, even if you drink [them] at the same time," he wrote.

To us, that just sounds like it means when you're stuck between ordering coffee for breakfast or a Coke with lunch. Maybe Coca-Cola Coffee Plus is the new brunch beverage we did know we needed.